Mozambique’s transport company lifts suspension on use of Sena railway line

Mozambique’s publicly-owned port and rail company, CFM, has resumed passenger trains along the Sena railway line, ending the suspension caused by threats made by the country’s ex-rebel-turned opposition political party.
APA has observed that the weekly service was reinstated with an armed guard on Saturday along the line between the coastal city of Beira and the Moatize coal basin, and on the spur which goes to the sugar town of Marromeu.

No trains have been attacked, but Renamo has admitted to carrying out several ambushes on civilian vehicles travelling along the main north-south highway between the Save River and the small town of Muxungue. In these attacks two civilians were killed and four wounded.

The mining company Rio Tinto suspended shipping coal mined at its Benga project along the Sena line to the port of Beira. However, the Brazilian company Vale has continued to use the railway, at a reduced level, for moving coal from Moatize.

Meanwhile, the leader of Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama, on Friday told a press conference in his bush headquarters at Satunjira, in Gorongosa district in the central province of Sofala, that he had never wanted to attack civilians, and that when he saw one of the victims on television, he ordered the Renamo men concerned to return to base.